Friday, April 06, 2007

Harry Reid Speaks Plainly About Bush And Iraq War

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) gave a press conference earlier this week in which he sketched out his views on the war in Iraq and multiple times accused George W. Bush of intentionally misleading the American people. Some excepts and video follow:

"This Congress is saying we need a change in direction in the war in Iraq -- it is not going well. I do not believe there should be a single drop of American blood, additional blood, shed in Iraq. I do not believe there should be another head injury in Iraq, of an American soldier. Let the Iraqis handle their own country. We've spent billions of dollars training their troops, we've spent billions of dollars propping up their government. As far as I'm concerned, that's enough.

"Let me make it very clear, as the president has tried to. We are not going to allow the president to continue the failed policy in Iraq. We represent the American peoples' view on this failed war and we're going to continue to put pressure on the president, so that he will change course in this war that has been so bad for the American people."

When asked about Republican assertions that Democratic efforts to end the war may result in the troops being deployed in Iraq even longer:

"Again, the American people are being misled by President Bush regarding the war. As we speak, there are troops headed back to Iraq, not having had proper rest -- some of them have been back here about six months -- they're going back for their second, third or fourth tours of duty. The surge was unnecessary, it's not working and the president is misleading the American people.

"The Congress is not about to do anything that will in any way stop the soldiers from having everything they need. This is part of the president's repertoire to try to mislead the American people about this failed war. The president is misrepresenting the facts as he has from the very beginning when he manipulated evidence to take us to war."

On Bush's threat to veto any bill that discusses withdrawal from Iraq:

"The president has a swagger and he's been very uncompromising and that's the reason we're in the quagmire we're in, in Iraq. He should become in tune with the fact that he is President of the United States, not king of the United States. And he has another branch of government, namely the legislative branch of government that he has to deal with."

And here's the full video:

Special thanks to my friend SilentPatriot at Crooks and Liars for helping me obtain this video.

Political writer Bob Geiger is the award-winning author of the Yellow Dog Blog and BobGeiger.com and specializes in coverage of the U.S. Senate. He won the 2005 Weblog Awards prize for Best New Blog and was a finalist in the Koufax Awards in 2005 for his column "I Know This Little Boy in New Orleans."

He is the coauthor of The Real McCain and his work has appeared in the San Francisco Examiner, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the New York Journal News. A contributing writer to The Huffington Post and Alternet, Bob also makes appearances to comment on Senate activity on many popular radio programs.